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| Clive Lewis |
Question:
WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN a CHEAP GUITAR, a PARABLE OF JESUS and a
SCHOOL IN UGANDA?
Answer:
THE CITY KID
Question:
WHAT IS THE CITY KID?
Answer:
It’s a novel for teenagers, soon to be published by
Dernier Publishing. But
let me explain a bit more…
First
of all, the CHEAP GUITAR. It was a steel-stringed acoustic
instrument, with a twangy tone, and not much to look at. But it was
given to me – and you don’t look a gift horse etc. The
problem was: I had never played a guitar before and was more or less
clueless about music – except I liked to listen to a wide range,
from Bach to rock’n’roll. So I taught myself some chords,
practised a lot (in the midst of my teaching job), and eventually was
able to accompany the choruses sung at the school’s Scripture Union
group. Let me make it clear: I was pretty naff at that time but it
was better than nothing (so they assured me.)
A
word about the SCHOOL. It was in Uganda and bore the splendid name
Kiira College, Butiki. It was on a hilltop, not too far from a source
of the River Nile at a town named Jinja. And on a clear day you could
see Lake Victoria in the distance. I had gone out to teach English
and Literature for a couple of years (in the end I stayed for over
seven years, but never mind that now) and, among other activities, I
was put in charge of the small Scripture Union group which met on
Sunday afternoons in one of the classrooms.
After
a while my fingers got the itch – to compose my own Christian
songs, that is. My first efforts were awful, partly because I knew so
few chords! Also, the words I wrote to go with the music were too
full of clichés – too many familiar phrases and expressions. I
really wanted to write words and music that sounded a bit different
from existing songs: material that would encourage people to listen
and think about the content.
After
my first two years in Uganda, I returned to the U.K. for a period of
leave and then flew back to a different school in the east of the
country. In my baggage was a brand new Spanish-style acoustic guitar.
It had as much nicer tone than the old guitar and was much kinder to
the fingers, especially if you wanted to go beyond strumming and
develop finger-style. So I was all set – but for what?
This
is where the PARABLE OF JESUS comes in. Not any parable but a
particular one – the Prodigal Son: the story about the son who
demands his share of the inheritance from his dad (who has plenty of
years left in him) and goes and blows it all in wild living in the
city. Finally, fed up (metaphorically) with eating pigs’ food, he
comes to his senses and returns home, in a very contrite mood,
expecting to become a servant in his dad’s household. Instead he
gets a grand home-coming celebration. You must know the story – no
need for any more detail.
Well,
it struck me that the lure of city life was very powerful among the
young people of Uganda. Most of the pupils whom I taught came from
poor rural backgrounds and they knew that the best way to escape
village life was a) to get a good education and b} to secure a
well-paid job in a town. And the town that had the most opportunities
was the capital city, Kampala. So most of the well-educated young men
and women were attracted to work there, preferably in an office in
one of the newly constructed high-rise blocks.
I
struck me that The Prodigal Son parable had a lot of applications in
the context of Uganda, which – in those heady post-independence
days – was keen to recruit newly qualified young people to the
ranks of the government and civil service. So I sat down to write a
sort of Africanised version of Jesus’ parable. I decided to call it
THE CITY KID. As I developed the idea, I somehow conceived the
plan to compose songs that would fit the narrative. (I can’t recall
the process now, but I’m sure God had a lot to do with it!).
Eventually I had nine songs that would accompany the telling of the
story. They’re not great songs and, if you heard them, you would
quickly note a variety of influences in the music: from rock and
country-and-western to folk and ballad. But the tunes were all
original and the words complemented the experiences of young John
Ouma, the name I gave to the African prodigal son.
So
now I had a storyline and a set of songs. (By the way, I should
mention that this was a long time ago, when I was in my
twenties, but there’s no need to labour this point.) What next? I
wondered. Fortunately, I had struck up a good friendship with a
Ugandan colleague, named Moses, who was a much better guitarist than
me. He helped me to choose a small group of senior students at the
school with singing ability. Together we practised the songs – two
guitars, an African drum and five or six voices - and at last we
were ready for our first performance in front of a large proportion
of the pupils at our school.
It
went well, even though there was no acting involved: Moses and I took
it in turns to read the narrative and, at key moments, we all burst
into song, with the drum accentuating the rhythms of the music.
Titles of the songs included Come In and Enjoy Yourself, No
Way to Go, and the theme song The City Kid, which begins
with the immortal (only joking) words:
You think that with your modern clothes
And the way you can dance,
With your miniskirted girlfriends -
that life’s game of chance…
The
presentation lasted about an hour and was well received.
Subsequently, the group performed it at neighbouring secondary
schools until The City Kid became quite well known in the
area.
The
story of The City Kid might have ended there – and I would
have been well pleased even if it had gone no further, because the
story had presented a challenge to many school children in the part
of Uganda where I lived. But it wasn’t the end of the story by any
means.
It’s
time for another riddle.
Question:
WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN a YOUTH FESTIVAL, an ARCHBISHOP and man
named EDWIN LUWASO?
More next time!
